Brian Dunn: The rise and fall of a salesman

Long before Brian Dunn resigned as Best Buy Co.’s chief executive amid accusations of misconduct, he described his feelings about the company in starkly personal terms. “I don’t want this to sound cornball,” Dunn said in a 2008 company video, “but it really matters to me that this is a place where somebody can walk in and build an extraordinary path for himself.” Dunn began carving out such a path in 1985. He was 25 years old, with no college education, when his mother helped him get a job selling VCRs and CD players at Best Buy’s Minnetonka store.